aggienaut | Alcoholic Wasps (Reply)

   I don't mean to alarm you, but wasps may have invented alcohol. Sacchromyces cerervisiae, the yeast we depend on for fermentation, cannot spread itself across the environment or survive long without food. So how does it survive from one grape harvest season to another, through the winter and periods with a lack of fruit, to say nothing of getting from one food source to another (somehow 0.05% of immature grapes have S. cerevisiae on them but 25% of ripe damaged grapes do. Birds and various insects could spread it about a bit but the yeast has only been shown to survive a matter of hours in bird guts. However, according to a 2012 study, you know where S. cerevisiae provably survives year round? Wasp guts. Survives the winter in overwintering queen's guts, and is successfully passed on by them to their offspring, and from them to any fruits they visit (they like fruit).
   On top of this, and what actually first caught my attention, was a 2024 study showing that the oriental hornet (Vespa orientalis)(hornets are a subset of wasps) can perfectly well metabolize alcohol up to at least 80% ABV (the highest the researchers tested). Knocked on their back for a few minutes, they were soon flying without impairment. Comparatively, consumption of 1-5% alcohol by honey bees leads to impaired locomotion, cognitive abilities, and aggressiveness. Much higher than that significantly increased mortality. The hornets, btw, didn't even show an inclination to avoid the 80% hooch when given a choice between plain sugar syrup and the rotgut.
   But natural fermentation can't achieve greater than 20% ABV (it requires artificial concentration through distillation to make all your favorite liquors), so why do they even have this ability?? Possibly just a few million years of constantly having fermentation going on in their bellies. Also they apparently have multiple copies of the alcohol metabolizing gene NADP+.
    So there you go. Wasps: heavy drinkers, but you may have them to thank next time you're washing down figs with a delicious oatmeal imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels.